


Meet Me On the Battlefield

by bravest_person_in_Wonderland



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio), Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Awesome Leela, Blood and Injury, F/M, Gen, Time War (Doctor Who), Whump, but i think it still rates as G, cauterizing wounds, it's not super graphic but it's kinda graphic, no beta we die like men, not super shippy but it's there a little bit, so I tagged it, that's actually a tag oh my word
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:13:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25854940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravest_person_in_Wonderland/pseuds/bravest_person_in_Wonderland
Summary: A sudden explosion leaves Narvin seriously injured and Leela determined to save him.(Featuring my feeble attempts at naming Time Lord characters!)
Relationships: Leela & Narvin (Doctor Who), Leela & Original Time Lord Characters, Leela & Romana II, Leela (Doctor Who)/Narvin (Doctor Who)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 7





	Meet Me On the Battlefield

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the [song](https://open.spotify.com/track/440JCAtxU17JnElhbXjVl0?si=5xAHJEZpSkmlC_DkSezjXQ) by SVRCINA.

Leela would later berate herself for not realizing sooner, not hearing the slight tick of the landmine or sensing its presence some other way. Her spine stiffened and tingled just before one of the two Gallifreyan soldiers who had come with her and Narvin stepped on the place the mine was buried. She didn’t even have time to shout a warning before the explosive charge went off.

The blast knocked her unconscious, though for how long, she did not know. Her eyes flicked wide open and she rolled to her side, assessing herself for any injuries before pushing herself to her feet. She was bruised and scratched and mildly dazed, but not seriously injured. The same couldn’t be said for the rest of the group.

Nastalya, the soldier who had set off the landmine, was splayed on the ground nearby and covered in blood, one leg blown completely off, the golden glow that Leela had come to know all too well wrapped around her. The girl would wake up someone entirely new in a few hours. The other soldier, a young man named Roscallo who reminded her just a little too much of Wynter, groggily sat up and rubbed his head.

“…’m a’right…” he muttered as Leela looked him over. He seemed to have hit his head, but was mostly, as he said, alright. She helped him to his feet before an icy jolt of fear stabbed through her. Narvin. Where was Narvin?

She whipped around, searching for his form among the burning rubble and brush around them. There. A limp shape lying at an uncomfortable angle on the ground a few yards away. She rushed over, Roscallo trailing behind, and dropped to her knees beside Narvin, rolling him onto his back.

To her horror, he was lying in a growing pool of his own blood, his hands pressing against a deep wound just below his ribs, trying in vain to staunch the bleeding.

“Oh, Rassilon…” she heard Roscollo say behind her, and she turned her upper body to an angle where she could fix the young man in a steely gaze.

“Get me something on fire,” she ordered, at the same time reaching to pull a knife from her boot. Thick, fireproof gloves were a standard part of the soldiers’ uniforms.

“What?” He looked back at her in confusion. “Fire?”

“Yes,” she spat as Narvin gave a low moan. “Fire.”

“He’s gonna regenerate, right?” The order did not seem to be reaching Roscallo, as his eyes moved back to Narvin.

Something snapped in Leela, and she spun around on her toes, still crouching, her eyes burning. “He cannot regenerate,” she said, too loud, her voice raw. “I must burn the wound or he will bleed out. Now get me fire!”

Roscallo finally did as he was told, and quickly staggered toward a nearby patch of burning debris. Leela turned back around, sucking a breath through her teeth.

“It will be alright,” she said to Narvin, although he was barely conscious. She did not know if she was truly saying it to comfort him or herself. It did not matter.

“Here,” Roscallo said, dropping a burning bundle on the ground next to her. “You’re gonna try to cauterize his wound?”

“Yes,” Leela replied tersely, resting her knife so that the blade was fully in the smoldering flames.

“Do you really think that’ll work? It’s a bit… primitive, ya know.”

“Yes, I am aware! But he is my friend, and I must try.” Her voice cracked on the word _friend._ Then, in one smooth movement, a sense of urgency filling her, she straddled Narvin’s limp form, pressing one hand to his chest just below his collarbone to keep him still. “This is going to hurt, I am sorry,” she murmured to him, before pulling her knife from the fire and pressing the red-hot flat of the blade to the inside edge of his wound.

She tried to tune out his cries of agony, to ignore the fact that she had never seen him this vulnerable. She gritted her teeth, holding the blade in the flame again for a few moments before pressing it to another portion of the wound. She repeated the process a few times until the bleeding had slowed to a trickle, then stopped. Roscallo looked on, his eyes wide.

“Go call for help,” she told him, an order which he immediately understood, he bustled off to a clearer area to try to contact someone.

Leela was surprised to see that Narvin was still awake. She had expected him to pass out from the pain, but when she moved from on top of him and looked down again, his eyes, though glassy and half-lidded from blood loss and pain, watched her. His breath came in shuddering, shallow gasps, and he did not try to speak, but his eyes said enough. _Thank you,_ they told her, but also _it hurts, please help._

She wished she could ease his suffering, could make it easier to endure until help came. But she was only human, and although she was capable of many things, she was not a healer. The best she could do was to gently stroke his hair with a blood-crusted hand and whisper soothing things as she waited.

When the medical TARDIS finally arrived, Narvin’s eyes had drifted shut and his breathing become more steady. She did not know if, medically, his being unconscious was a good sign, but at least in sleep his pain eased. The medics loaded him and Nastalya, who had now completed her regeneration, onto stretchers and carried them into the TARDIS. She and Roscollo followed, and another group of medics came to treat their much less critical injuries.

When they returned to the Capitol, Leela went to her rooms to clean up, then back down to the hospital. She intended to stay there with Narvin until he woke up. Before long, Romana quietly entered and sat in an extra chair that a nurse brought.

“I thought when you didn’t come to brief me that you might be here,” she said. “Roscollo and the doctors say you saved Narvin’s life by cauterizing that wound.”

“I did what any good friend would.”

Romana was silent. “I wouldn’t,” she finally said. “Because I wouldn’t know how to.”

“I can teach you,” Leela said, tilting her head.

“That’s not what I’m trying to say, Leela.” Romana looked into her eyes. “If you hadn’t been there, Narvin would have died. Another name on a mile-long list of losses.” She shook her head sadly. “When will it end?”

“ _Will_ it end?” Leela added her own question gravely, her eyes flicking back to Narvin’s pale face. Or would it continue until the lives of all she cared about were snuffed out, and she was left alone?

“It will,” Romana said, forcing confidence into her voice that Leela knew was false. “It has to.”

Leela gave her report there, next to Narvin’s hospital bed, and Romana left. When she returned, Leela was surprised. Romana held two cups of tea – a reserve she had kept for just such a time as this, she explained – and handed Leela one. They both sat there in quiet companionship, and both smiled with mirth when Narvin finally awoke and his eyes went wide in surprise at seeing them.

Leela would later berate herself for many things she failed to stop, many injuries and losses that her mind illogically claimed were her fault, but the knowledge that she had saved Narvin’s life in this instance was enough to calm that restless guilt, at least for a while. She did not know what would happen to any of them in the future, but for now, they still had each other, and that was enough.

**Author's Note:**

> I made up so much stuff in this, so if anything is inaccurate... sorry! I've only heard through the third season of Gallifrey (but I do already know about Narvin losing his regenerations), but this idea wouldn't leave me alone, so I decided to write it anyway. 
> 
> Happy reading!


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